Originally Posted in November 30, 2017
Senate Health Advisor, Jennifer Leslie, has advised the Senate District 38 Health Task Force to begin a call to action on the human trafficking problem that is riveting our communities and the the entire country.
According to recent academic journal articles, “approximately 18,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year and are forced into commercial sex work. A huge percentage of these victims are seen by a healthcare professional within the healthcare setting, yet often times, they go unrecognized as a sex trafficking victim.”
Members of the task force believe that healthcare providers can help identify victims of sex trafficking and connect them with needed resources to bring them to safety. The health task force research and recommendations committee members have conducted an extensive research on human trafficking identification, and found that many healthcare professionals do not know how to identify the human trafficking victim, and that there is no national protocol that adequately addresses identification of the human trafficking victim.
Dr. Alejandro Arrieta, FIU professor of public health and head of Senate District 38 Research and Recommendations Committee designed a survey form to take to each emergency department. Each survey in the form of a questionnaire would take about two minutes to complete.
The health task force had been drafting a legislative bill on human trafficking identification in the health care settings. After months of hard work and intense research, the task force team submitted the final drafts of healthcare legislative bills SB 1784 Human Trafficking and SB 1786 Family Caregiver Tax. If these bills pass, they would become law. The team was thankful to Senator Daphne Campbell who helped in the filing of the two bills. Senate Health Advisor, Jennifer Leslie said, “it wasn’t easy, but we did it.”
